Faculty React to Smith’s Handling of the COVID-19 Crisis

The pandemic has widened the gap between Smith’s most and least privileged members — including its faculty members. 

On July 6, President McCartney announced Smith’s plan for the upcoming 2020-2021 academic year. Some faculty believe that it is the next best thing to what life was like before COVID-19. Others disapprove of the plan. One tenured professor who wished to remain anonymous criticized Smith’s reopening plan in an email to the Sophian, writing that they “can’t think of a better use for part of [Smith’s] massive endowment than keeping all members of [the Smith] community – students, faculty, and staff – medically safe and financially cared for during a global emergency.” Still, the plan remains.

 “Some courses will be taught fully in remote mode, a very small number will be in person only, and many will combine in-person and remote modes (‘multi-modal’). The mode of instruction for courses will be included in the course search information online,” Michael Thurston, the Provost and Dean of Faculty, said. This being the case, professors are reworking their classes to make them as fulfilling as they can be. 

“For my GEO101 course, I will be mailing ‘lab kits’ to the remote students to provide them with a hands-on virtual learning environment (yes, that means I am mailing boxes of rocks!),” Sarah Mazza, Assistant Professor of Geosciences, wrote in an email to The Sophian. Other professors, such as Nancy Whittier, a sociology professor, said that her Quantitative Statistics class will be held remotely, but that she is going to hold more small meetings with students. 

 “It’s clear that doing a good job teaching online will take a lot more time than teaching in person, and I’m clearing my schedule for the fall so that I don’t have research and writing obligations,” Whittier said. 

Since May, the Provost has been running weekly forums to help guide faculty and answer their questions. Some faculty members responded to these forums with overwhelmingly positive feedback. Ellen Kaplan, a Professor of Theatre said, there has been an “extraordinary commitment from College Hall.” Katherine Halvorsen, a Professor Emerita of Mathematics and Statistics wrote to the Sophian that she has “particularly appreciated the Provost’s openness about what the administration knows and does not know.” 

“Smith’s administration has risen to the challenge,” MJ Wraga, chair of the psychology department, said. 

But some faculty members  – in particular contingent faculty – have expressed disappointment at how Smith has handled these forums amidst the COVID-19 crisis. 

One contingent faculty member who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that these forums have felt exclusive and failed to consider contingent faculty members’ needs. They said that professors are unable to join these forums last minute as they need to be invited and approved to enter. They added that many staff  – even those who teach courses – have not been invited to or allowed to register for certain forums, and that although these forums are recorded by the Provost’s Office for note-taking purposes, professors and staff members are unable to access them.

“Recently, as more specific information has gone out prior to official announcements (e.g., only 1st and 2nd years will be on campus in the fall), the admin have been chastising and displaying mistrust in providing any confirmation of yes/no questions [during these forums] about safety protocols or written documentation because ‘”someone will put it on the confessional, please don’t put it on the confessional’” one contingent faculty member who spoke on the condition of anonymity said. 

The Provost responded to these comments stating “all faculty, of every rank, are invited to join and participate in every faculty forum without any differentiation.” 

The pressure of reworking one’s classes is just one stressor in the list of many that faculty members (particularly contingent faculty members) have on their mind. 

“Faculty morale is very low, and we’ve lost a huge amount of faith in our college leadership. We talked to two colleagues this week who are both feeling so betrayed and disheartened about Smith right now that they are seriously considering going back on the job market to try to find positions elsewhere,” a tenured faculty member who spoke on the condition of anonymity said. 

Some faculty members have no choice but to reenter a precarious job market. As one contingent faculty member wrote to The Sophian, from the Smith Contingent Faculty Group: “ENG118 instructors were recently notified this week [July 13-19] that they are not being rehired for the Fall. They had been waiting for the shoe to drop since the hiring freeze was announced, and now we have definite information regarding that (un)employment.” 

“The College makes it pretty clear that they don’t care about contingent faculty members. In fact, they act as if we don’t exist. The Provost himself expressed that ‘contingent faculty’ is a category that ‘doesn’t exist.’ Last year, we taught 57% of the classes at Smith,” one contigent faculty member who spoke on the condition of anonymity said. This percentage is based on a general estimate from contingent faculty members who, as this contingent faculty member states, “tallied the number of classes, as well as the number of students contingent faculty were teaching in the fall and spring (2019-2020).” This percentage had to be estimated as the administration has only released partial data as to how many contingent versus non contingent faculty members there are. Data that, according to a contingent faculty member, “overemphasizes tenure-track representation by counting emeritus faculty as full-time.” 

“Do I want to go back to a place that disregards me? That doesn’t value me as a professional or as a human being?” one contingent faculty member said. “No. I do not.”